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Ok folks...the time has come...i need to learn how to paint an ESB helmet! Before i even THINK about trying to paint a FPH2 i need a first go at helmet painting. SO..this fiberglass casting of my Scratchbuild (V2) is going to be my guinea pig. ( build thread: http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f23/d...h-build-31411/ ) The only thing i REALLY dont like on this helmet is the keyslots came out awful. I will likely cut that section out and make it out of ABS sheet and just glue it in. But overall i think it has a nice ESB feel to it. I will be using resin cast GMH ears i got from Lucksy31 that are already painted by Superjedi on this.

Please excuse these first few pics...my wife is away and took BOTH of our cameras..so im using my samsung reverb phone to take pics.

Im probably going to start with the back panels, as they frighten me the most lol.

Going for layered Right now i just put on the basecoat light grey Humbrol 147 (not whats pictured) ..gonna wait till tomorrow to do the first color Im going off of TF's step by step "one last wafer thin" thread. He really layed out the order of how to do things so i feel its best to follow that until i get a couple of helmets under my belt lol

ok...so apparently my casting is slightly off lol. the right back panel is about a half inch wider than it should be. Rafael's stencil fits almost prefect on the left panel but the right it comes up short left to right but fine top to bottom, so I had to fudge it a little. Also the helmet wasnt perfectly cleaned up to begin with..it was a B grade cast which is why i kept it, but for this purpose, its fine..the roughness kind of adds to the weathering

Anyway I layed down the cream color last night (103 misted with 28) and removed the mask this morning. Doesn't look too bad. its still a little off but all the major shapes are there. I would have liked more fine detail but its hard to get the mask do do that...im guessing i'll get better with it over time. I may go in with a fine brush and add the finer details later. Again these pics were taken with the cell phone so the color is a bit darker looking in the pics than it is in person.

Going to buff with steel wool 0000, and lay down the green mix in a little bit.

Ok here is the green on. Im content with it. Not happy, but content. I need more practice getting the mask to do finer lines. I also think i confused myself in some spots with the mask. But this is certainly looking like a useable helmet. Please ignore the awful keyslots...those are going to get cut out and im going to remake that part in ABS paint it, and just glue it in.

Nice work Darth! For finer damage with the liquid mask, it actually comes down to spending a great deal of time getting your shapes stencilled in correctly. Once that is done, everyone has different techniques, but I like to use toothpicks. I find the toothpicks are great for fine detail, and are super cheap and esy to discard when they clog. I start by masking the inside the outlines, and then, the areas in between are easy to fill in with an older, bigger brush etc.. One word of note - this type of stencilling and masking can take a massive amount of time. You can literally spend hours on one panel. But, the more you take your time, the more accurate results you will get..

Thanks, and thanks for the tips JayVee! Yea it took ,me a loooong time to stencil out the back panels and then mask them. The mask im using isnt so great which isnt helping, but i think its going to come down to more practice. Ya know i thought about toothpicks actully lol..oddly i dont have any at the moment..i may pick some up today.

Im finding cleaning off the brush frequently helps as well. I think i need a better masking fluid...this one seems to dry REALLY fast. Sometimes i get the perfect edge and then when i pull the brush away it peels some of it off because it was starting to dry!

Luckily, im not freaking out too much cuz this is a B grade casting of my own scratch built helmet so its really a practice run. Im already learning from my own little mistakes and getting more used to how the mask reacts as im going along. Also my build is off compared to the stencils, so thats not helping lol

I also am having issue getting the stencils to stay put on the domecuz paper doesnt curve to the form of the helmet..ugh.

I think in the end i will just add the fine detail with a superfine brush to at least get the look im going for.

That's pretty much the way I'm working on mine. Some areas just seem too small to mask a whole extra layer so a good fine brush makes more sense. I ruined one expensive brush with masking fluid. It clogged up straight away. Jayvee's observations on why toothpicks are exactly as I would have stated. I did consider a sort of plastic stylus brush but concluded that it was really just an expensive toothpick! I think your paintup is coming on well; I understand the feeling of not being quite satisfied with everything all the time or being content rather than really happy. I'm still on my first paintup and everything is a learning experience. I hope my next will be better but I will add that I am in awe of anyone that actually builds their own helmet from the bottom up! I'm just painting someone elses work whereas you have truly created something. Hat off to you DV.

When I did mine I left both the upper and lower cheeks exposed. I masked off the rest of the helmet (except the dome which i did at the same time) and then did the lower cheeks section to completion. Once the lower cheeks and dome were dry I masked off the lower cheeks and dome and then painted the upper cheeks, which are predominantly black. Under the black (and silver etc) of the upper cheeks is the main green. In this way I saved a lot of time on masking out a whole extra section. I hope that makes some sort of sense because reading it back it's pretty confusing.

Dom, Its my dumb ****** cell phone camera...my wifes still not back from vacation and she has both of the good cameras! So im stuck with the cell camera..color does look way off in the pics..looks more ROTJ green but im using all humbrols..its humbrol 78 on the dome. Using TF's color list to the tee.

Thanks Intwenothor, Yea im not thrilled with how its coming out, but its not bad and will likely be a usable helmet when done Yea i did like the fact that even though this wont be the most accuraste and perfect lookin helmet, i did in fact build it from the ground up...using WOF's templates of course. Yea what ya said makes sense...since this was my first go, im following TF's "wafer thin" thread, as i call it lol. So im using the same order and method he did...of course my results this time dont compare, but i'll take anyones suggestions into consideration for next time. Eventually i'll get a knack for it....i hope lol

It was just a time saving idea. I thinkyour paintup is looking good. I'm more or less at the same stage with just the red bits, as I call 'em, and a boat load of weathering to go. I've masked off the rest of the helmet and now need to start with the fluid again (sigh). At the moment most of my other parts were bought painted from Bobamaker but I feel much more of a connection to the helmet I'm painting. That feeling must be magnified if you've made your own lid!

It was just a time saving idea. I thinkyour paintup is looking good. I'm more or less at the same stage with just the red bits, as I call 'em, and a boat load of weathering to go. I've masked off the rest of the helmet and now need to start with the fluid again (sigh). At the moment most of my other parts were bought painted from Bobamaker but I feel much more of a connection to the helmet I'm painting. That feeling must be magnified if you've made your own lid!

Thanks man...i just wish the tiny details were there...but in due time with a teeny brush ...heh i know that "sigh" feeling all to well already when it comes to the masking lol. TF is a masking machine!..he gets the details so nice with that stuff!

Yea i guess you could say the connection is definitely magnified doing the whole thing from start to finish...very rewarding.